Saturday, October 31, 2015

Baltimore harbor collects a lotta trash, as harbors tend to do. And anything but a west wind is going to keep that flotsam and/or jetsam in place. An eyesore at the city's primo tourist destination. So they have an automated skimmer that works like a Roomba slowly hoovering it all up.

Friday, October 30, 2015

So the liberal voice on the university radio station just told me, "The majority of gun owners are white and male..." They then went on with the man bites dog story about how this one DC suburb bucks the demographic trends.

But that isn't news. The white part. It's true, yes, but not abnormal. If you grab a huge portion of average Americans you can safely say the majority is white. It's what you'd expect, inside expected parameter for 2015. What is outside the norm is the male part, as there are slightly more women than men about.

I think that prefatory statement was just word jumble to fill the time. Maybe some liberal virtue signalling.

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Also: Good that an NPR station has at least a semi-positive gunnie story in suburban DC! I didn't stay tuned in to find out what was the demographic feature they found unusual to be enjoying the shooting sports or self defense practice. Women? African Americans? A group of Guatemalan immigrants? Blind people?

Ok, the gun-banners want universal background checks on all gun sales, even private ones. They also insist their only concern is improving gun safety with common sense gun regulations and are certainly NOT for banning and confiscating all guns and you are a knuckle dragging trogolodyte with a small wiener for even THINKING such a thing. Let's call this group of folks Bloomberg after their biggest booster. (we could call them 'Liars' and much much worse, but we will keep it civil)

We, in the gun community, lets call us the NRA after our biggest entity for lack of another term, have been at this game a long time. The NRA has compromised in the past but the compromise all seems to go one way. Agin us. When gun bannage is called for it is always the NRA that has to claw back some ground. If the NRA gets gun friendly legislation passed later it never quite makes up for what we lost. Except maybe for the sea change in Shall Issue. So the NRA is wary, to say the least.

Anyway, so there is a motion on the floor, universal background checks, how should the NRA respond in a legislative judo type way, where it looks like the NRA compromises, but actually gains much more than they lose? Use out opponent's weight against him.

As soon as the the NRA says yes to universal background checks the clamor from their own side will be deafening, so this so called compromise better be good... If you want to win them over and get them on the same page.

Ok, why would our side be upset about universal background checks? Lots of reasons. It's a hassle, to start. You are never going to get the people that type SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!!!1!!eleven in all caps, as you don't need permission to vote... but most gunnies are on board to prohibiting the sale of a pistol to paroled felon that did time for murder. Our real problem is that a universal background check can mean universal tracking of every sale. A simple matter to turn that tracking into a universal gun registry. And a registry is required to conduct a universal confiscation. And THAT is our biggest bugaboo. Registration historically leads to Confiscation.

So how do you square the circle?

Remove references to serial numbers from the background check process. I've advocated about this before.

Now the NRA GAINS something in a compromise. Serial numbers are in the FFL log book, just like now, on gunstore sales. So the criminal investigation side doesn't gain or lose anything new. FFLs that perform the checks still get their fee for running it for a customer that wants to do an individual private sale. The gummint has a record that T-Bolt ran a check on himself on such and such a date, and, let's say, that permission slip is good for a month. T-Bolts long lost Uncle that sold him the gun can feel confident that T-Bolt is permitted to receive the boomstick.

Probably will have to have a check box on gun type. Until we can sell pistols, &c., across state lines. Maybe make that legal in this Universal Background Check Bill. So, at any rate,n if not changed, Uncle in Kentucky can sell the .30-30 rifle to T-Bolt via this system, but would still have to do a FFL dealer to dealer transfer for the war bringback M1917 S&W revolver.

So, what happens if T-Bolt goes rogue and becomes a felon a year later? The gummint has a record that I at least sought permission to receive a firearm. So now the po-po has grounds to issue a warrant and confiscate my firearms now that I am a prohibited person. Just like now.

So, Bloomberg gets his Universal Checks, the NRA gets it's gun rights protection, and we have a compromise! There is the win-win gains, and nothing is lost via anyone's stated desires.

---

But it's not that simple, is it? Bloomberg would HOWL. He doesn't really care about the background check. He wants the eventual registry. So he will oppose this bill whole hog, but make up other reasons to declare it unacceptable beside the 'we can't make a confiscation registry out of THIS!'. He can't state that desire as when its worded that way he can never get any votes to pass anything.

NRA would HOWL. Or at least the 6 million dues paying members and 10's of millions more in the gunnie community that care about this and understand this. Because once you open the door to any gun-control sausage making in the legislature who know what will pop out the other end of this beast in a bill heading to the executive to sign or veto. You get things like the Hughes Amendment of '86 when you open this door.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

One of the perks of being a gun blogger, still? I get the opportunity to shoot other people's guns at blog shoots, which can be hella fun. I dunno if I'd ever have had the chance to shoot a brown bess and a .50 and a martini-henry and a drilling otherwise.

I have been truly fortunate, because I find it fascinating.

I'm not a collector of things. But I do have the collector urge in me. Deep down. I have to suppress it. As a kid it was seashells and pennies, later I almost fell into the antique woodworking tool trap... Guns, of course, is a parallel. When I do have the urge to collect I don't want ever different possible variation of the Model 10 including limited editions, nor do I want new in box museum quality items. I am more of the 'gimme one of each type' and not get wrapped up in the condition or variants.

Instead of actually owning one of each, I am more than happy to try shooting one of each at least once. And I am not crazy about it. I have passed up shooting an Arisaka at least once.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

He still likes the old canard that the NRA is in the pocket of the gun industry. That the NRA exists to sell guns. Like the gun industry is some huge monolithic cartel with trillions in sales. Hey Marty, do you think and O'Malley administration will see more guns sold compared to, say, a Carson administration? Yeah...

Meanwhile, the liberal Baltimore newspaper conceded that guns are here to stay. Glad they recognize that. But there is a lot spewed nonsense in that piece. For instance:

"When a group of young women at the University of Texas proposed to carry
dildos openly on campus to protest a law allowing guns on campus, the
proponents of this joke met with a storm of abuse, including death
threats. Apparently the Y chromosome cannot bear to be mocked."

Liberal reporters never seem to see the death threats coming from the other direction. And when Socialists talk about killings, I take notice. Due to their history for the past century.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Good stuff. Dips into the more paranoid side of 'Our Team' but that's ok.

I was thinking. Fedgoons, as he likes to call them. We saw that. New Orleans and Boston after the Marathon. They had to import so called 'goons' as there were not enough locally. And to do a nationwide house to house search for all 300,000,000 firearms, assuming you get law enforcement and the national guard to sign off on doing such a thing (and they might not...), will take longer than a week. Folks will notice. Not just poor people in New Orleans that couldn't get out of the city or Bostonians long divorced from firearm familiarity and more citified and placid in the face of authority. And the so called 'goons' had an exterior excuse.

Hard to maintain an excuse and do enough in time to get full forcible confiscation before people start to think and assemble and whatnot. The so called 'goons' can't even round up cows in a remote ranch area without attracting attention from people that don't find that popular.

I don't think the State in competent or pervasive enough with willing participants on their side to get away with shenanigans outside of smallish area without a significant response.

Anyway, I need to re-read that for the good BOB nuggets. Maybe another post if I think of something interesting.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Here is me with two of Lagniappe's Lair guns. Sadly, the Tommy gun was feeling under the weather, so I didn't get a chance with that. But these are condolence guns.

A Martini Henry. I am holding a case. He has to make them from all brass 20 gauge shells necked down. Black powder, of course. It packs a bit of a wallop.

"It's the Zulus, T-Bolt. Thousands of them."

"Oh, bother."

And this a lever action Ruger .44 Special with an integral suppressor. I just giggle when I shoot something that big that quietly.

I had never fired either of those kinds of guns before, so... victory. I also tested my new AR trigger in one of my dozens of preban AR15s. Yup. Always had them. So the state of Maryland can relax about that.

Friday, October 23, 2015

A guy at the firearm blog spent a lotta money to do a custom 1911 build, and wrote a review of the experience. Like I am doing! But his is with Larry Vickers. Heck, even I recognize that name. He's famous.

But the experience didn't live up to the expectation. Oh sure, he made a gun, and it wasn't a disaster, but it sounds like it could've been a better week.

Is Larry a gunsmith or a shooter? I'm sure he is both, but I also am pretty sure he is a shooter first. It's a shame Larry wasn't as attentive as he could have been. And Sam is a gunsmith first, shooting instructor second. I found Sam attentive enough.

I'm spending a lotta money, but not THAT lotta. And I doubt I'd have advanced beyond intermediate if Larry Vickers was teaching the class. It appears to stress independent learning, and I am a bit of a slow head.

A Palestianian rams a bus stop full of people with his cars. Gets out of his car and goes to town chopping at the wounded like Paul Bunyon, killing more folks. Just awful

A gun toter of some flavor arrives on the scene and engages the assailant. This is inside of 10 seconds. Two people have been chopped of before someone engages back. In ten seconds. Good thing this wasn't New York or LA. You'd have to wait for the cops. Minutes away.

The terrist has a lot of fight in him, charging a man with a pistol. We can't hear anything so there is no notion of how many rounds are fired at the bad guy but some connect because he collapse to the ground and writes in pain. But the fight is not out of him. He throws the knife at the shooter! It even bounces of the fence next to the shooter and close to the terrist. The shooter has to kick it farther away, holding his pistol on the bad guy. Other help arrives at the scene of chaos. There is quick negotiation with the new arrivals "are you a good guy or bad guy?" The shot up terrorist STILL has enough gas in his tank to get up and try to flee. Looks like he takes another round in this scuffle and goes down, then gets up and maybe takes another round and goes down, doesn't go any further.

Lessons for Joe Schmoes.

Shoot to stop. If the bad guy is throwing knives at you you didn't stop him enough.

The whole 9mm v. .45 argument reared its head in some discussions. And that leads to the 'all pistol calibers suck' argument. 8 rounds of .45, or 18 rounds of 9mm or 5 rounds of .38... Get hits, repeat until the threat is stopped. Reload if you have to.

Getting hits is easier said than done when you are adrenaline amped to 200 heartbeats a minute. And you only have so much spare ammo on you.

What if there were 3 guys in that car as motivated as our single bad guy? Then this pistol toter was gonna get some hits in and get overwhelmed. Doesn't matter his caliber or magazine capacity.

So, what lessons are there for use armchair quarterbacks? "Be calm, and get good shot placement and have enough reloads," is easier said than done. Run away? Sometimes that is not an option. But if toter had been hit in the femoral artery with that knife throw then hindsight suggests he should had done that. Only a few more strangers would have been killed, maybe. But he didn't. And you might not have in that situation. And thank God for people that intervene like this, but, sometimes it won't turn out ok for that volunteer.

It's a bad scene all around. But you may want to think through such things for you, in case fate puts you in such a place

Monday, October 19, 2015

Many have noticed the remarks of this silly Manhattan Leftist. "We should take over the NRA from the inside! It's worked for us in other situations." Yeah yeah, not too bright or able to see beyond Stage 1.

First, to take over you need to pay dues to the NRA. LOTS of dues.

Where does that money go while you are building up your left gun-banning majority inside the NRA? Well, it helps us, the Good Guys.

She probably thinks it only costs $25 to get a membership and vote. Well you get membership at that level, yes. And a magazine. So, the cost is more that she think for 5 years to wait for a voting membership or pay the $500 or so for a Lifetime membership.

And she'll need a LOTTA new member. Individual members. I doubt the NRA will send thousands of voting ballots to a single NYC PO Box. So they gotta tap all the anti-gun org's membership to be their mail drops. But there are no memberships in anti-gun orgs, so she has to build that up first. The NRA will also notice the membership surge even if not to a single PO Box. The secret will not be kept. Heck, I am talking about it now, here. So she will inspire more members to join on OUR side to counter her faction. And our side is kinda motivated. It'll be hard for her and her kind to match that enthusiasm with gun banners, no matter how much money she has.

Speaking on money. Let's say she pulls it all off, and does it in record time of a just a few years. She secures a million new lifetime members to corner a voting block. Plenty enough to shape the board. The old board, in the meantime has been using the fresh $500,000,000 in dues to lobby congress and state legislatures. With that kind of money they could make Maryland's gun laws to look like Montana's. (Anti-gun pols that vote to be more like Montana could rationalize that 'the Fed's are in charge of guns, we'll let them do all this...')

But she's won. She beat the NRA after all that and now she succeeds at... electing a new board of directors. The next election the NRA Board of Directors is all anti-gun people. All the money is gone, as we saw the writing on the wall. Remember, the secret wasn't kept well. What will the new board do? I guess no longer lobby for gun rights. Us pro-freedom folks would move on. Heck Maryland looks like Montana, remember? The coffers are empty, and not refilling. If a fresh move to ban guns came up another pro freedom group would spring up elsewhere or they'd rush toward an existing organization. In great hordes.

Now the leftists are out a lotta money and they are back to square one.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

It's the same one as I had already, but they took 125,000 miles off it. I'll need another car in 4 years. Sigh. The price was good.

Still sorta wish I got the '04 Crown Vic with 35,000 miles on it. But I need more cargo space every other week, and 2 weeks a summer, and 4WD for the 5 times it snows.

Looking at carmax, I could get a used Lincoln Towncar for $12,000 or less. And. I can afford that. Now. After buying a used Durango. I would eat up a good portion of my emergency cash fund, but not even close to all of it. I could still buy a new roof after that. 2 used cars and a roof without going into debt. I should feel blessed. And I do feel so.

But you know what is expensive? F150s. Couldn't afford one of those without financing.

He also repeat a lotta Liberal canards and gun control shibboleths and conflations in his article about guns in Time. And he wants to repeal the 2nd Amendment someday in the far future.

30,000 gun deaths!

It's those fat cat gun industry types! Follow the filthy lucre! We kilt off all the Injuns with guns!

I'm a gun owner's butt! &c!

The usual. Just vomiting up the standard anti-gun stats like so much spaghetti thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

But it's not JUST that. Would that more Democrats thought as he did. You just gotta sift through the logorrhea to get to the good stuff.

No, I'm kidding, it's not that at all. It pretends that that is way the argument is going. That there is an actual reasonable pony at the bottom of the pile of manure. Kareem was reliably gun-banny. Propaganda all througout.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

I am more willing to switch over to 9mm now, and simply ditch the .40. 4 years ago I leaned toward .40 because I had .40 and didn't want to clutter up the ammo storage room with something new. I still don't want to clutter up the bunker annex, but I'd just get rid of .40 and replace it with 9mm. If you aren't going .45 because reasons, don't go halfway and just downshift to .40. Take full advantage of what the 9mm has to offer in cost capacity and recoil manageability.

That said, I'm still nowhere near that place where I can see myself bring a 9mm home. I'm just now getting good 1911 action, both in my skill level and the guns I am modifying myself with close supervision from a real gunsmith.

I guess I can always make a 1911 in 9mm.... No no. That way lies madness...

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

"Bail assistance: The Network provides up to $25,000 to post bail on behalf of a member who has used force in self defense"

So, a fella calls, sez he needs bail and then they go... 'Whelp it doesn't look like self defense to us, you are on your own buddy.' After skimming the police report, or whatnot. Other things of that nature. What if you legitimately defended yourself but lose the court case anyway? Do they want their money back?

Maybe I am just over paranoid and suspicious. And I am sure reams of legal documents come along with the policy just like my car insurance stuff.

Cost seems high: "New members pay $125 for their first year's dues and renewing members pay $85 per year. Members can add a member living in the same household for an additional $50 per year." I am thinking few member make a claim on their policy, but also they probably don't have thousands and thousands of members. I pay 7+ times that for a car insurance policy every year, but claims on car wrecks are much more frequent... I dunno...

Monday, October 12, 2015

And one particular dim bulb had the lack of reflection and self awareness to post this:

Followed by this:

And I didn't even bother to point out the contradiction. "Are you anti-gun or pro-gun, man? Are you racists or anti-racist? Make up your mind."

Separately, there is wrong enough with both. I love the straw man in the first image. But to post both of them in series, unironically? Classic. Some of the most highly educated stupid people I know are like this guy. Advanced degrees, tunnel vision, lack of sense.

Maryland dropped this in 2013... I thought. From March of THIS year, that article.

For those of you unaware. New York and Maryland had a system where every pistol sold, new, you had to send a spent case from that pistol to the State Police, where they would be able to use the ballistic markings the gun leaves on the brass to help them solve crimes. The word on the street was they only 'solved' 2 crimes. And those were slam dunk investigations where they dipped into the ballistic database to prove a point. But apparently the latest info is that 26 cases were done, in part, using this system. Averaging 2 a year.

It hasn't been funded, really, since the post Sandy Hook legislation came down the pipe.

Bureaucratic inertia keeps it alive. Let it die. It's a boondoggle. A waste of police resources.

Something occurs. I modified my 1911 a LOT doing the custom rebuild. Firing pin, extractor... Even parts of the chamber geometry is differnt. No way the spent case that came from this gun when new is the same as a spent case today. Heh. Good thing for the police I don't engage in street level pharmacological retail competition dissuasion and whatnot.

Still applies. Heck, just point the dang thing. Concentrating too hard on sight picture. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Point it like a flashlight and just do the trigger right. Don't tense up part way through

He says I am doing better. And there were occasional glimmers of things I like. Sub 10 second plate shooting (20 plates).

I am now approved to buy a pistol again. The ID will come in the mail here someday soon. Maybe... Nope not yet.

It expired on October 4th 2025, so that is more time than I originally though. I started applying on the 16th of September. So let's say I get the handy dandy HQL card on Friday and rush right out. Still need at least a week. 7 day waiting period. So exactly 1 month from "I need a gun because my ex husband is gonna kill me but luckily I have a DD214" to actually having the gun. Pistol at least. Better get a Joe Biden special, ma'am.

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Update, came in the afternoon mail.

Here is an interesting detail. You need this Handgun Qualification License to buy a regulated firearm, yes. You also need it to rent a gun. There's a wrinkle I didn't know. Another way to discourage anyone from the gun culture in this state. We are as bad as Massachusetts. Now I have to buy a BUNCH more pistols! So I can train n00bs, where before I just sent them to the rental counter, now I'll just bring a dozen different models.

Friday, October 9, 2015

So, for the gun store near you... are you seeing runs on the inventory, or has Chicken Little cried 'wolf' too many times? Anecdotally, here, in Indy, and Misfit's place, the answers seems to be 'no panic'

I've got guns bought already. But I will have to do a transfer once Maryland gives me permission to do what I already was doing for years again. So a sales boom will be a PITA. I just need to resolves this by Christmas for gun skool.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

I was born a Methodist (Grandparents were... Dad was a while but had drifted away quite a bit before my birth, but really, that is 'by birth' right?) Now I am no longer welcome in any Methodist church, anywhere.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

There are precious few examples where gun fights erupt between a bad guy and a good guy more casualties than would have happened without a good guy result. I can't think of one. Also see all the Dodge City predictions when a state goes Shall Issue that never happens.

There is evidence the other way, tho... Also tons examples of folks with zero training effectively defending themselves with a gun from a bad guy. Even the Bradys admit to over 100,000 a year.

I look forward to someone correcting me with additional facts. But The Nation may be full of hooey. Whole lotta strawmen in there, as well

But not just for guns. Guns add an extra interest, of course, but all those industrial process shows fascinate. I can watch the episode of How It's Made about jet ski fabrication and be content. Industrial processes of yesteryear even more so, like, say, a 1940s ditty about making mechanical cash registers in Dayton. This video hits the trifecta. Guns, Industry, History.

First time I've heard Garand's voice. Whoa nelly, what accent is that? The name might be French, but that doesn't sound French to me. (I know he is a Canadian import...)

Speaking of that, the Garand movies really helped me out, but I have never watched this for my M1A stuff.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Hillary, your husband CAUSED those deaths in Oregon, it certainly can be argued. Gun control is at least partly responsible. The whole "Gun Free Schools" was a thing his administration made popular. The college was disarmed thusly. His gun control efforts are a direct result of those shooting deaths. If he hadn't have done that, there is a much much better chance the nonsense wouldn't have caught on and spread and the school would just be another public place where the law abiding CCW people carried routinely. And if there was a carrier in the the class there would at least have been a chance, a CHANCE, to nip this in the bud before the victim count climbed.

We need more gun control to prevent this in the future? No. We need less.

Going to gun skool this afternoon. But not for smiffin'. Maybe get learned on how to shoot better. The gunsmith has that capability at his place in his simulator. Though, if I decide to keep at it over enough sessions and it looks like it is doing me good, he does shift to live fire instruction.

You know what I also like about shooting training? The instructor often has an arrangement with the local range. Where ordinary Joe Schmoes are forbidden from drawing from a holster, with the instructor there you can do that. Sometime, some places.

No fool. There is so much more signals that gun CONTROL is the racist thing. Overt and covertly. From before the civil war, through the Sullivan Act, and in any rule that required the local police official to sign off on whatever type of permit you needed. And always a big Democrat thing. It only got flipped to a liberal thing when the Democrats themselves flipped. It's still racist, but now liberals try to hide that part.

The authors think the South, then and now, were violent because of slavery and racism. But if not a single slave existed south of the Mason Dixon, and the whole region was mono-melaninned, the system of personal honor in place that the residents retained from the old world would still have colored a Southern man's attitude toward personal weapons, I am sure. They say:

"The slave South’s enthusiasm for public carry influenced its legal
culture. During the antebellum years, many viewed carrying a concealed
weapon as dastardly and dishonorable—a striking contrast with the values
of the modern gun-rights movement. "

They really don't even comprehend the gun 'culture,' do they? Which is really just a subset of something else they can't comprehend about the majority of their fellow citizens. There is a reason that happened, but it seems to escape them. When such things escape them, when they fail to apply the intellectual rigor to understand basic concepts, it is easy to discount their judgement elsewhere.

Other commentors have gone on about how wrong they are, pointing to northern attitudes they gloss over, the anti-racist and pro-gun origins of the 14th Amendment, etc.

Sometimes, I wonder about, maybe, there might be some wisdom in the carrying of concealed weapons in No Gun Zones, despites the signs. There is some risk of getting in trouble, but there is also a chance you'd have a chance if the balloon every went up.

Now, I am, personally, a goody two shoe namby pamb Charlie Sierra Boy Scout, and would never do such a thing. No. But there are others otherwise law abiding toters, on the margins, that did that routinely, yesterday. And even more will start doing it tomorrow.

Good Advice

"You never select a shotgun as your primary anti-zombie firearm. It's great for onesy twosey, but zombies travel in hordes. The reload time is onerous, and the ammo, while effective, is heavy and bulky and short ranged."

Big Mistake for Her

If Ginsberg had let Scalia put the words "strict scrutiny" in Heller and Hillary said "Gun control is just not going to be a priority for my administration," Hillary would have been elected President.

About Me

Preamble

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.